"If you don't have all the songs picked out for the rest of your 6 weeks of covers I have a request/challenge for you..."
In honor of getting chickens, I sing about foxes...
Another stretch! Here it is: Unforgiven by Metallica. I like to translate and I love the challenge. So, when someone requests Metallica by Gina Holsopple, this is what happens...
The spring brings summer and likes to remind us of winter. I wait for tonight's freeze with a little trepidation and a big blanket. I've covered the plants I took a chance putting in the garden and will wait out the night as peacefully as I can. A glass of wine, a piece of pie and some good company.
Sometimes I like to imagine myself in a cathedral, just me and my voice. Or in an open field. Something raw and piercing...
Now before I head out to pull roots and rocks and build fences, I have another cover song for you. Perhaps the most requested, albeit mostly in jest, song ever.
It is spring and I am surrounded by dirt and music. I think there is probably nothing better...
With John Denver, you can't really go wrong...
It changes everything when the words you are singing are not the story you want to tell the world. I can sing anything, but the question becomes - is it really what I want to say...
Here we go! Our adventures in cover songs begins now...
"Okay. We're gonna write a song. What is it going to be about?"
"A rainbow!"
"Ok, what happens to the rainbow?"
"It turns all red."
...So, here is song number 8 and I've got several questions for you. First, I want to hear what songs are your favorites from this six week study! Secondly, I'd love to know what your thoughts are on combining this next set of songs in another album...
AND last, but certainly not least, my third 6-week session is coming quickly. It will be COVER SONGS and I am taking requests!
Last week ended with a helicopter landing in my neighbors yard in the middle of the night...
I am pushing hard against the overwhelming desire to freeze like these days that winter maintains a firm grip on us all. If I just sit, perhaps when I get up again spring will have come...
It is one thing to have an idea and something else entirely to complete an idea in full form. These past five days I have had a million beginnings to songs...
I like writing songs. I like singing. I do it for my soul....Listen to this one. I think it is one you'll here again.
It is so easy to get frazzled. This freeze/thaw; hints of cold/hints of warm; the need to: organize, get rid of, help out, blend in, sit down, read everything, build more...write more songs. There is music in everything. There are new notes in every step I take. But I have to steal moments, like a precious bubble that glows brightly in the light for a moment and shatters as soon as I wrap my fingers around it...
I walk through 2 feet of snow emptying jugs strung to our maple trees. I wash the dishes. I sweep the floors. I start the wood stove every morning. I help my son with his schoolwork. I help my daughter up, down, to the potty, get something to eat. I start the seedlings. I do the laundry. I do the various duties required by my other piece-meal jobs. I sleep. I eat. I write songs...
Six weeks of songwriting started this morning as I tried to wake up. Pulling lines, pulling melodies, accessing the moment right before one fully wakes up where there is a lower threshold of fear...
I've made the last significant discovery of this yodeling practice....
It's my second to last yodeling song. Three more days and one more song to go...
There is so much anticipation that starts happening right about now...
I tried something totally new! I decided...
Time. It's dripping off the roof like the 2 feet of snow we had only yesterday...
My computer doesn't want to work this morning! And I'm already 30 minutes behind in where I had planned to be. Oh well, I suppose I can slow down to the speed of life...
So, the challenge has definitely increased. Today was the day to record my attempt at "I Love to Yodel"...
These six week sessions are good if for no other reason than that they are making me get out my guitar...
Jimmie Rodgers and his Blue Yodels make up a good chunk of the yodeling this six weeks. His accessible yodeling style make these songs fantastic "learner" songs...
Today yodeling is about breath and loneliness. I've been...
I was totally intimidated by song #2 in my six week schedule. Convinced that I had upped the challenge too quickly, I spent a whole day just listening to the song before I even attempt my own try.
I was shocked in my discovery today that yodeling does not just crave cowboy songs to be sung on the trail.
Today is January 2, the first day of 6 weeks of yodeling.
Thanks to all who came out to the show last night at Taste the World! It was...
I feel as though I am validated in heading in the right direction. I've received some really lovely emails in response to my initial post. (Thank you!) Not only are there some great performance possibilities (Thanks to you!) on the horizon, now I am ready to put my energy into planning the 6 week sessions that are to be sprinkled throughout 2013. Wednesday, January 2 is my start date and I will begin with yodeling.
For 2013, I will not do any of my own booking -- I leave that to you! I am going to perform as many shows as I am asked to perform. I will go where the wind blows...